Right now, our most viable replacement to incandescent are CFLs, and while they do promise efficiency, there is an intention to replace them in the future (or at least better them) because they contain toxic mercury. One option researchers are working on is LED lighting. A limiting factor that prevents LED lights from being used on wide spaces such as parking lots and malls is that they give off a rather weak light compared to current technologies. This is because white LED lights are made by coating blue LEDs with phosphor. According to CrunchGear, Toshiba Japan is claiming to have developed white LED lighting that exhibits 50 percent higher UV light emission efficiency compared to other white LEDs.

The new white UV led light by Toshiba was made by filling the gap between the sapphire substrate and the gallium nitride layer that emits light with an aluminum nitride layer. This apparently improves the LED light's efficiency. Green, blue, and red phosphors coat the LED to produce light with a 23mW brightness that's higher than other white LEDs by 8mW. Toshiba's target date for commercialization of the new efficient white LED lighting is the year 2010.